Beavis from Beavis and Butthead do America.

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Alan Ladd - Shane
Wayne - The Searchers

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rahul hasn’t raised the point per se about the movie. he raised the point re: the abridged version of the play by rostand.

cyrano de bergerac is not a fictional character. he actually existed and died very young at the age of 36. He was an individualist, a humanitarian, a critic of descartes, a 17th century science-fiction writer. anti-war and anti-death penalty, and rostand’s romanticization of him is just that a romanticization.

but even in this romanticization, i believe cyrano’s complexity comes through. and i put ’’defect’’ in inverted commas rather than calling it an abnormality because i think that cyrano was more concerned with the falseness of society around him than he was about his nose. of course he didn’t like it being made the center of attention by his enemies, or those who were strangers. this is where his wit comes into play. he attacks the patron-poet/playwright dynamic and justifiably so. he gives away all his money to someone in need which is why he is broke. and his ’’non merci’’ response to his friend le bret, which for me is one of the memorable scenes of rappeneau’s remake of cyrano reveals the hypocrisy of patronage and the aristocracy. i can see where people would think he comes across as a snob in certain respects, but again, characterizing him as such is really not so simple.

i disagree with the portrayal of cyrano by ferrer, depardieu, or perhaps even martin as a paranoid weakling who was always ready to pick a fight. what cyrano was fighting against went beyond the size of his nose, and it doesn’t make him a lopsided character to fight for what he believes in. we must all be lopsided then. i think that depardieu and ferrer were able to go deeper into the character and portray that.

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Rahul, has raised an interesting and I believe, a valid point. Not every
character in a book lends itself to a true & complete portrayal in a two
hour movie. Since I haven’t read the book yet, I have only the perfor-
mance of Depardieu and Steve Martin (in Roxxan e) to go by.

Instead of Cyrano coming across as brave and noble, rising above his
physical abnormality (as ana put it), he came across as an insecure,
paranoid weakling who was always looking to pick the next fight. Those
who used words against him, would not only get his rapier wit in return,
but the metal blade as well.

Is that really the way to go through life ?, wage war until nobody is left
to mock your big nose ?. What kind of a message does that send ?.

So maybe I am missing something, which failed to get translated onto
the screen. Because, as is, the character on the screen seemed just as
much lopsided, as it’s nose.

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BlackBoard Jungle is a great movie; darker than To Sir with love. Glenn Ford is a great actor.
Cyrano is certainly a complex character. I think the root cause of whole trouble is the abridged version. It engages in condescending simplifiction at the best and blatant misrepresentation at the worst. If I had relied on my childhood readings I would have thought of Shylock as the villain in Merchant of Venice and Gullivers Travels as a childrens book. The abridged version should be banned, in my opinion.
Last summer I saw a wonderful reproduction of Cyrano in the fringe theater festival in toronto.It was played in a lawn and the caste passed mosquito repellant lotions around. The caste came and sat with us when they were not needed. The lead actor was fantastic . After seeing this production, the thing that stayed with me was his wit.

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i didn’t respond to simon’s strictly speaking comment, because i’ve never seen the blackboard jungle, and i don’t see how my travails might relate to that, but if anyone was to be strictly speaking and going by what they see on chowk, then one would guess that simon could well identify with rambo. ))

yeah amrita, ferrer died over a decade ago. colon cancer. the caine mutiny with him and humphrey bogart, one of his finest performances in my opinion.

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i agree with ana that cyrano is rather more complex a character to play than one might imagine. on the surface its such a syrupy role but after you’ve seen a couple of versions you begin to see the difference between those who’ve played it flippantly and those who’ve taken the time to actually take him seriously - a tremendously brilliant man who masks his insecurity with razor sharp wit and a sharper rapier until love leaves completely vulnerable. you might see a parody of that in bollywood but there very very few movies that actually pulled something like that off.

but the blackboard jungle? ) i guess the west coast is pretty rough then. and jose ferrer is dead? did not know that. :(

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re: the theme of cyrano. cyrano de bergerac is not just about somebody who loves somebody else and they have to play it cool. cyrano is also about someone with quite a visible ’’defect’’ who suffers a great deal for it, but who also ’’makes up’’ for it by using his mind and his heart in writing.
in that respect, i don’t agree that it is like every other desi movie.

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Strictly going by ana’s travails on Chowk, I would’ve guessed her to strongly
identify with the Glenn Ford character in The Blackboard Jungle.

Btw, don’t you think every other desi movie has borrowed the Cyrano theme,
where somebody loves somebody, who loves somebody else and they have
to play it ’cool’, until fate can intervene and set things right ?.

#16 Yup, that is one the popular ones. I wonder why we continue to regard
that as a water-shed moment in the genre of court-room dramas ?. Has there
really been no other character since Atticus Finch, who embodies all of his
qualities and then some ?. If anything, the stories and characters have
gotten more PC, since To Kill A Mocking Bird. Or is it simply because Peck
played it so well ?.

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getting back to characters in movies you feel are you, or your ideal. . . i was thinking of both the late jose ferrer’s and gerard depardieu’s portrayals of ’’cyrano de bergerac’’, and particularly with depardieu’s. . . beautiful.

amrita: i’m looking forward to watching good night and good luck if it comes this way.

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welcome to the nerdy beyond, roz ) there was actually this great documentary on elia kazan on tcm the other day with an actual interview with him. great stuff esp the part where he started talking about brando.

ghulam ... btw george clooney just made a movie called good night and good luck about murrow taking on mccarthy

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whoa amrita, raw_dust! this is all really cool information!
gotta read up more on kazan’s connections to maCarthy trials.

on an aside, there’s an indian version of ’on the waterfront’...with amir khan...’ghulam’ i think is the name. naturally ’slightly’ more dramatic

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yea.. background info is all good.. only in kazan’s film on the waterfront ..i found it became a major turnoff...

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)
i actually like knowing these lil bits and peices of background info. the thing that bugs me is that i keep wondering what else kazan would have come up with if only he hadnt fallen into the mccarthy trap or if stalin hadnt come along and pretty much shocked lots of people into non-communism including kazan.

i dont think williiams was a communist. but i dont know. his big deal was getting over the regional tag and becoming part of the american canon IMO. he was prolly too exhausted from that to do anything else. i mean, that was a pretty damn tough time to be trying to break into the lit canon or even films for that matter.

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darn it.. on the waterfront is such a great film if one wouldnt know the teeny weent bits of this whole elia kazan blacklist crapola .. terry molloy rediscovered conscience... elia kazan got tired of communism... jus greatt!

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yea i dint know that he was actually a born-again ’’American’’.... interesting..
did tennesse williams ever come under the influence of commies? besides other great things...

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